Well, it's definitely not you, and it's not Vista. I'm able to recreate the SysEx issue on a beefy Windows 7 machine too. Now that I have a consistent way to recreate it I can start to debug it. Will let you know what I find.

Well it seems that manufacturers are still making MIDI devices with incomplete or broken SysEx support.

I like the Alesis cable. I especially like that all the electronics are contained within the USB plug and that no drivers are required. But that looks to also be its Achilles heel as it looks like the on-board driver is simply broken when it comes to SysEx and it cannot be upgraded.

My suspicion, after playing with some low-level code, is that it is transmitting the data at a rate that is too high for the Zendrum to accept. There's not a damn thing we can do about that though. That it works in MIDI-OX is a mystery. But considering the size and age of that program I suspect they have written their own low-level code for transmitting SysEx whereas I'm relying on the modern Windows multimedia subsystem (API).

If you're looking for a similar product that does work with the Zendrum and ZenEdit, then I suggest the M-Audio USB Uno. It's been around awhile and the latest drivers are 100% compatible: http://tinyurl.com/8f9l5j8

I'm going to update the support page on the ZenEdit site to show which interfaces are known to be compatible and which are definitely not.

Excellent information all the way through. I read about the freeze, and the fix. Looks good now. I will order up the recommended USB cable tonight! I'm glad you were able to get that squared away too. It will be very helpful to everyone when you post compatability info, then you won't have to address this issue again (hopefully). I'll let you know going forward how it is working out once I get the new cable.Thanks again Darin. I would never attempt to set uip my Z4 again without using zenedit. Your program allows us to use all the nuances that the Z4 chip is capable of producing. It turns the Zendrum 4 into a Beast!!!

Hi Alan. I've answered this in your email, but will repeat it here for brevity. I thought I had posted about this somewhere back when it was discovered, but can find no record of it.

"This is a known issue with 10.6. ZenEdit shows a prompt when it is launched stating in effect to not worry about it. There is a checkbox on that warning to 'not show again'. At some point you must have checked that if you're not seeing it.

Nothing to worry about, and the problem goes away in newer versions of OSX."